As the conference of CITES, the international organization that controls the trade in endangered species, came to an end in Bangkok, the United Nations released a report warning that elephant populations across Africa are at grave risk. According to the report, a surge in poaching and accelerating habitat...

On BBC Question Time last week an angry audience member asked the panel why Britain should be sending military help to the French in Mali. "I don't remember the French coming to our aid when we went to the Falklands" he fumed to loud applause. At the time Britain's commitment...

Last June following a short but bloody battle Islamic fighters ousted the Tuareg National Movement for the Liberation of Azawad (MNLA) from the city of Gao. After a hiatus of nearly five months, fighting has again erupted between the MNLA and fighters from the Movement for Unity and Jihad in...

The Olympics bring out the best and worst of us. Amid the rampant commercialism and LOCOG's draconian restrictions burst the creative genius of Danny Boyle's opening ceremony.

Beside the slavering corporate greed, heroic feats of human sporting endeavour are being performed daily. And just a few hundred metres from...

As the long wet British summer was transformed this week by blue skies and back-to-back sunshine, the mood of the nation lifted dramatically. But despite this empirically observed but scientifically unproven connection, the weather is not one of the ten key indicators in the Office of National Statistics 'happiness index'...

Whilst the hunger strike may have made its greatest political gains in the twentieth century helping to expose injustice, overturn prejudice and even overthrow empires, the release of Palestinian footballer, Mahmoud Sarsak, last week after a 95 day hunger strike demonstrates this ancient form of protest has lost...

Children have a remarkable ability to live in the moment, to lose themselves wholly in an activity and take pleasure in the most simple of things. They do not spend time dwelling on the past, worrying about the future or deliberating on the consequences of their actions. That's what adults...

Ahead of this weekends crucial talks between Iran and the P5 + 1 countries, Stefan Simanowitz intercepts a letter from George W Bush to President Obama

Howdy Barack,

Now I've no great interest in politics but it dawned on me that I have a duty to write to you,...

Diepkloof, a suburb of the sprawling township of Soweto is not the most likely of places to find a classical music school but at the end of a dusty road in the grounds of a Presbyterian Church the haunting strains Dvorák hang above the corrugated iron roof-tops. The hall is...

If it is true that wars begin in the minds of men then Iran and Western powers have been at a state of war for some time. Martial rhetoric has been accompanied by steady military build-up and unprecedented diplomatic shut-down as each side throws away their steering wheel in this...

For an activist like me the sensation of walking across the 6 October Bridge and into Tahrir Square at the height of last month's 'second revolution' was equivalent to how an Elvis fan must feel arriving at Gracelands for the first time. In January and February I'd followed the unfolding...

Almost four months after rioters transformed Broken Britain from metaphor to reality the hand-wringing, soul-searching and blame-dishing is still going on.

Last week's interim government report on the riots was followed this week by the publication of a data-driven study by the Guardian and the London School of Economics....

"Is it mere coincidence that we have been served eviction notices at the same time that riot police are clearing out the occupations in Wall Street, Oakland, Dallas, Atlanta, Vermont, Denver, Oregon and Salt Lake City?" asks one Occupy London Stock Exchange protester.

"And is it mere coincidence all...

"I do not think this report is likely to be a game changer", says Paul Ingram, executive director of the British American Security Information Council, referring to the International Atomic Energy Agency's (IAEA) latest report on Iran's nuclear programme.

Presented to the IAEA's board of governors in Vienna today,...

"I've had enough" says Tim Saunders. "Enough of this grotesque greed and fraud on a massive scale. Enough of spiralling education costs and watching my mother scrapping by on a meagre pension. Enough of the claim that the banks are too big to fail."

Forty-five year-old chartered accountant Saunders...

In 1960, the UN adopted resolution 1514, which stated that all people have a right to self-determination and that colonialism should be brought to a speedy and unconditional end. Half a century later it may come as a surprise to readers to learn that there are still sixteen territories around...